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Rehabilitation ought to be valued above retribution in theUnited States criminal justice system.

I affirm.

My

value

is

morality,

which

is

defined

as

right

and

ethical

behavior.

My

value

criterion

is

consequentialism,

which

is

looking

to

the

consequences

and

outcomes

of

an

action.

When

we

look

to

the

consequences

of

an

action,

we

can

determine

whether

or

not

that

action

is

moral.

I offer the following definitions for clarification:

Rehabilitation:

therestoration of someone to a useful place in society.

(wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn Wordnet Princeton University)

Ought:

used to express obligation

(Merriam-Webster)

Retribution:

punishment inflicted on someone as vengeance for a wrong or criminal act

(OxfordDictionary)

Criminal justice system:

a

series

of

organizations

involved

in

apprehending,

prosecuting,

defending,

sentencing,and

jailing

those

involved

in

crimes

-

including

law

enforcement,

attorneys,

judges,courts

of

law,

prisons

(dictionary.com)

Contention

1:

Retribution

is

ineffective.

Subpoint

A:

Retribution

leads

to

recidivism.

Recidivism is defined as habitual relapse into crime. Without rehabilitation programs, past offenders willnot learn or change their behaviors, therefore leading to repeated crime. Coupled with the fact thatretribution is ineffective, it is obvious that rehabilitation is the only suitable option.

THE RETRIBUTION SYSTEM OBVIOUSLY HAS NOT WORKED OUT IN THE PAST

Aitken, 09

Jonathan Aitken is a former Conservative MP who was imprisoned for perjury. His report,¶

'Locked Up Potential', for the Centre forSocial Justice, is published today. He was speaking to Mark¶

Hughes. Jonathan Aitken: The way we treat prisoners creates a conveyor belt ofcrime. A system based¶

on punishment rather than rehabilitation won't work. MONDAY 23 MARCH 2009,¶

offendertreatment indicated that programs, in the aggregate,reduced problem¶

behavior. As such, there is noevidence that offenders cannot be rehabilitated.¶

Losel

(1995) hasconducted the most comprehensiveassessment of the metaanalyses of offender rehabilitation programs. In a review of 13 meta-analyses¶

publishedbetween 1985 and 1995, Losel found that the mean effect size ranged¶

from a low of 0.05 to a high of 0.18.This finding has beenconfirmed in an¶

updated review by Redondo, Sanchez-Meca, and Garrido

(1999,252).The consistency ofthe positive effect of treatment in these meta-analyses is important¶

because it suggests that thisresult, at least in broad terms, is not dependent on¶

the sample of studies selected and codingdecisions made by individual authors.¶

Indeed, even meta-analyses conducted by scholarsunsympathetic to rehabilitation produced positive effects

(see Whitehead and Lab 1989). Losel estimates¶

that acrossall the meta-analyses, “the mean effect size of all assessed studies¶

probably has a size of about 0.10” (p. 89). Using Rosenthal’s (1991) BESDstatistic,this would mean that the recidivism rate for the treatment group would¶

be 45 percent, while therate for the control group would be 55 percent.According to Losel (1995, 90–91),however,this

overall effect sizemight

be¶

underestimated. Treatment groups, for example, are often compared with control groups that do notreceive “no intervention” but some other type of criminal justice sanction, which might involve somekind of treatment.

The

use of¶

dependent variables that are measured dichotomously and with official measures of recidivism also mayattenuate the effect size. Thus, Lipsey (1992, 98)¶

notes that official indicators of delinquency have low reliability because “it is¶

officially recorded contact with an agent of law enforcement or thejuvenile¶

justice system.”He calculates that when this fact in taken into account, the¶

“deattenuated effectsize” for the interventions “doubles”

(p. 98).

Through this evidence you can see that retribution is entirely ineffective. . as well as when looking backto my framework, it is clear that retribution carries far too many negative consequences to beconsidered. Rehabilitation solves for these consequences, particularly recidivism. When we preferrehabilitation, we are achieving the best possibleoutcomes, which is the most moral action.

calculation of these figures adds up to astaggering $8.9 billion annually.

Rehabilitative efforts

such as the Drug Court Programreduce these costs to

1

Francis T. Cullen and Paul Gendreau—2000.

[Francis T. Cullen is Distinguished Research Professor of Criminal Justice with the University of Cincinnati. Paul Gendreau is Director, Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, and Professor of Psychology with theUniversity of New Brunswick at Saint John].Assessing Correctional Rehabilitation: Policy, Practice, and Prospects. POLICIES, PROCESSES, AND DECISIONS OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM, Vol. 3. Criminal Justice. JS.

The estimated cost to imprison one inmate convictedof a non-violent crime is met incontrast with theestimated $4,300 cost of giving the same individual

drugtreatment

(Drug Abuse Treatment).

AND,Rehab is preferred for youth; most cost effective.

Elizabeth

Owens-Schiele.

April

30,

2010.

Sending juveniles in trouble with the law to

neighborhoodprograms rather than detention centers ispreferable

to most people in Illinois, whobelieve

it's less expensive and more effective,

according to a survey released Friday.¶

"The public is looking toward real solutions to youth crime, as opposed to short-term retribution orshort-term answers that could be far more expensive in the long term," said David Whittaker,executive director of the Chicago Area Project, which commissioned the study. "When kids are locked up indetention centers, research shows they are not getting the support and help they need to turn theirlives around."

When

looking to

the economic consequences, it is clear that rehabilitation is again the preferablemethod. It is inexpensive as well as effective, which cannot be said for retribution. When looking toconsequences, the right choice would be to use a system which is costeffective and benefits society,which would be rehabilitation.

Contention

3:

THE

PUBLIC

HAS

CONSISTENLY

SHOWN

SUPPORT

FOR

REHABILITATIVE

PROGRAMS

Besides being affordable and effective, the public has also shown tremendous support for

rehabilitationabove retribution. Combined with the previous evidence, the only valid choicefor the criminal justicesystemis to value rehabilitation over retribution.

Francis T.Cullen

[Professor of Criminal Justice and Sociology, University of Cincinnati], “It’s Time toReaffirm Rehabilitation,” Criminology & Public Policy, 5 (2006): 665–672

To be sure, evidence of punitive attitudes toward offenders was not in short supply. But evenat thistime and in this context,the public remained supportive of rehabilitation both generally

(Cullen et al.,1988)and for juveniles

(Cullen et al., 1983). Over the years, with some modest variation, this finding hasbeen replicated repeatedly (for asummary, see Cullen et al., 2000; Cullen and Moon, 2002). In my ownresearch, my colleagues and I have discovered time and again thatthe public favors rehabilitation as agoal of corrections, believes that treatment is particularly important for juveniles, and especiallysupports early intervention programs (Applegate et al., 1997; Cullen et al., 1990, 1998; Moon et al.,2000, 2003; Sundt et al., 1998). To supply just one example, ina

2001national survey, wediscoveredthat 80% of the sample thought that

rehabilitation should be the goal of juvenile prisons and that over9 in 10 favored a range of early intervention programs

(e.g., parental management training, Head Start,afterschool programs) (Cullen et al., 2002a). I call public support for rehabilitation a “criminological fact”because over the course of a quarter century, it has been demonstrated in study after study. Just toreinforce this point again, a 2006 national poll sponsored by the National Council on Crime andDelinquency found that “by an almost 8 to 1 margin (87% to 11%),the US voting public is in favor ofrehabilitative services for prisoners as opposed to a punishment-only system” (Krisberg andMarchionna, 2006:1).

The general public’s agreement that rehabilitation should be preferred cements all evidence thatrehabilitation should be valued above retribution. Seeing as that morality is right and ethical behavior,and recognizing that the outcomes and consequences of rehabilitation are right, ethical, and supportiveof society, makes itobvious that you should look to the affirmative.